


somewhere across the sea

by mettaverse



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Amputation, Divorce, IT STARTS SAD BUT ENDS HAPPY I PROMISE ITS OKAY, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-01-02
Packaged: 2019-02-26 15:14:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13238421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mettaverse/pseuds/mettaverse
Summary: prompt: please don't leavewhere shiro and lance lose love and find it again.





	somewhere across the sea

 

> _Prompt: Please, don’t leave._

When Shiro first saw him Lance was bright eyed and wild haired, body a collection of mistakes; a scraped knee, skinned elbows, a band-aid hidden underneath the collar of his shirt. He was playing in the street as if cars didn’t exist, as if he was the only invisible ten year old in the entire world. Distantly, Shiro could hear his mother scold him for refusing to meet the new neighbours. And Shiro was adamant that he didn’t  _need_ to meet them; the kid was two years younger than him, so, really, why did he have to meet a  _baby._

But then Lance’s eyes flickered to Shiro’s, staring at him through the window pane and Shiro felt butterflies explode in his gut-

And he hid underneath the window sill until Lance had gone inside for lunch. His mother smiled at him, ruffled his hair,  _go meet him, Takashi._

There was something about the way Lance grew into puberty that reminded Shiro of his astronomy classes. Of stars exploding, creating life, shaking the fabrics of apathetic space until it felt  _something,_ felt  _new._

Lance tells him it’s the testosterone he’s finally been allowed to take. But it’s not just the long legs that stretch on for miles, not just the broad shoulders capable of holding up the world; it’s those frantic animal eyes of his, bright and impossibly blue; it’s that smile, plush and taken care of. It’s those fingers that  _tap tap tap o_ n Shiro’s heart until something breaks, something shatters, and the shards are left for Shiro to pick up.

Lance is a super nova, Shiro decides. When his teacher talks of the vast array of stars Shiro can’t help but think of bright white teeth and long eyelashes wet from the sea.

* * *

The first time Shiro and Lance had sex was harder than the first time they kissed. When they kissed it was chaste, simple, the barest whisper;  _I like you more than anything,_ it said. Their lips fumbled against each other-  _I don’t know how, but I’ll learn to love you somehow._

Lance’s lips were a minefield, exploding against Shiro’s tongue, leaving blood on his teeth, stars in his eyes. But exploring his body was like being in the sea without something to hold onto. Every time Shiro thought he got somewhere there was a new expanse of freckles, waves of stretch marks he hadn’t licked, scars he hadn’t soothed.

When he was little he wanted to be a space explorer. Figure out how space worked, find new planets, new beings of life. Space was different than the ocean; more explored, less unknown. There’s something unnerving about the sea, knowing it’s almost everywhere and they know almost nothing. He thought he knew what he wanted to do back then-

But with Lance lying underneath him, eyes wide and burning, chest heaving and lips curling up, Shiro decided that maybe drowning isn’t so bad after all.

* * *

After that Shiro climbs into Lance’s window every weekend, shaking from the cold.  _“You’re gonna get caught one day, Takashi,”_ Lance would whisper.

“ _I don’t care.”_ And he meant it. Every single time.

* * *

Shiro and Lance were poor when they got married. Lance eighteen, Shiro twenty, both living off of cup noodles and McDonalds. Shiro studied the stars while Lance studied the sea; they were polar opposites, reflecting each other in every way possible. Shiro dreamed of their wedding when they were in high school- it would be by the beach, so everyone could see how Lance mirrored it, became it. It would be close to night, so the stars could see how Shiro loved this piece of space, this bottle of stardust and sea salt, more than he loved anything else in the galaxy.

Instead, they went to the court wearing used, brandished rings, and Lance got Shiro’s last name. It was the only thing he could afford.

And Lance beamed when it was changed.  _“Lance Shirogane,”_ he laughed,  _“better than any name in the world.”_

* * *

Leo and Leya weren’t planned.

It was in the middle of Lance’s senior year when Lance came to him shaking, eyes full of tears- “ _I want to keep them,”_  he said. And all Shiro could think of was family, two babies, and so much  _money._ They could barely keep themselves afloat, never mind two children.

But Lance. Lance with those eyes, Lance with that mouth, frowning. And Lance with that swelling belly, barely noticeable, barely there-

“ _Okay,”_ Shiro said.  _“Okay.”_

* * *

 

When the twins were three, fighting Lance was easier than loving him.

Shiro was involved in an accident. He was on the plane from his grandpa’s funeral when it crashed. One minute he was looking at pictures of Leya smiling, of Leo playing with their dog, and the next he was staring at the hospital ceiling, a gash on his nose and an empty weight latched onto his right shoulder.

Lance tried to make it better, but Shiro didn’t  _want_ to be better. He slept in the guest room. He stopped coming to dinner. He refused to go to therapy, wouldn’t entertain the idea of a prosthesis-

Shiro guesses, it was his fault they stood in the court room again.

Lance was wearing sunglasses when he returned Shiro’s last name to him. He couldn’t see those eyes of his, only black reflecting the man he became; broken, scarred,  _disappointed._

He stood in the parking lot for two hours before he picked up Leo and flew across the country.

When he dreamt, he dreamt of dangling on a string above the ocean, his fingers barely grazing the waves. If he could only reach further down, stretch his body, become something more than he was maybe, just maybe-

“ _Please don’t leave me,”_ he would tell the waves.

And then he’d wake up, alone in a new bed.

* * *

Leo is so much like Lance it hurts, sometimes. When some babies are born they have blue eyes and then, slowly, they morph into brown or green. That’s what happened with him, apparently, and every day he waited until those ocean eyes would wither away.

Leo is six now and has the eyes of an animal; frenzied, excited, wild and untamed. When he smiles it’s feral, pointed teeth and blood red lips. He reminds Shiro of an ocean he can drown in. He reminds Shiro of-

He makes Leo wear sunglasses most of the time. Tinted ones.  _Don’t want your eyes to get hurt by the sun,_ he’d say.

Lies taste worse than the alcohol he drinks.

* * *

“Papa, it’s abuela.”

Shiro screws his eyebrows together and puts down the paper.  He hasn’t spoken to Lance’s mother since the divorce, since she kissed Leo goodbye at the airport as if Shiro wasn’t there. Maybe he shouldn’t have been. Fear lodges deep inside his chest.

He presses the home phone against his cheek. “Hello?”

There’s a wobbling breath on the other end. “Shiro,” she starts, “I need you to go to California.”

“Is everything okay-”

“No. Everything is not okay.”

And that’s how he finds himself on the plane with his son gripping his fingers tight tight tight. They’re in the sky and Leo marvels at how the ocean looks underneath them, how the light touches the waves. Shiro barely hears him, can only hear Lance’s mother-

“ _There’s been an accident.”_

* * *

He thinks, maybe, that hospitals are the worst thing on the planet.

The smell sneaks into his clothes and whispers in his ears- he still remembers the names of the doctors that explained his amputation. Still remembers how the fabric of the hospital gown barely clung to him, the back open and revealing new found scars, barely healed.

He thinks he’d rather die from a heart attack in his home than be transported to another hospital. He still feels the needle pierce his skin and into his veins when he sleeps. Still feels the warmth of Lance’s hand in his, his fingers tracing shapes, his mouth whispering how much he  _loved Shiro-_

He knocks on the open hospital door before coming in. He might be a piece of shit, but at least he’s a polite one.

Lance’s head snaps to the door. It’s been three years since he saw him; they don’t FaceTime, don’t call, don’t send letters.  At twenty seven Lance still has smooth skin devoid of any wrinkles or blemishes. And those eyes-

“What are you doing here?”

Shiro swallows roughly. “Your mother called.”

Lance snorts and looks away, crosses his arms across his chest.

“Lance, you’re hurt-”

“I’m fine.”

“You got in a  _head on collision._ ” Lance open his mouth and Shiro cuts him off- “Let me help you.”

And Shiro knows the fire in those eyes are always a bad sign so he readies himself for-

A child running into the back of his legs.

Shiro startles and hears Leo  _squeal._ “Daddy!”

“I told you to stay in the play room-”

But Leo doesn’t care about any of that. He rushes to Lance and throws himself up on the bed. Lance winces; he has broken ribs and a concussion, but he smiles that smile of his anyway, holds their little star to his chest.

Shiro feels like he’s intruding. Like he shouldn’t be here. But another voice growls at him,  _look what you caused._ Lance crying. Leo crying.  _It didn’t have to be this way._

When it’s all over Lance is wiping his eyes. The red causes the blue to pop, to reach out and grab Shiro by his shirt. “Take care of them while I’m out, Takashi.”

* * *

Lance’s house is by the beach. It’s painted baby blue and set with a wrap around porch. Shiro doesn’t know much about Lance’s life anymore, but he remembers him getting his degree in marine biology. The pay must be nice enough for Lance to afford this, but he doesn’t ask. He does ask- beg- Lance to let him help him get to the front door but he refuses. Even as his ribs creak under the pressure. Even as he limps.

_Does he hate me that much?_

The last time Shiro saw Leya was last Christmas; that was his turn to have both the twins over for the holidays. She has his eyes, grey and monolid; she’s getting taller, too, especially for a six year old girl. A small part of him expects her to hate him- he knows kids of divorced parents tend to do that.

But her face lights up and she runs to him the minute he enters the house. She smells of sea salt and Playdough. She cries, too, and before long Shiro’s hunched and holding her to his chest like she’ll wash away at any minute.

Lance doesn’t say a word.

* * *

“Stay in bed, Lance.”

Lance grunts as he waddles down the stairs. “You can’t tell me what to do-”

“I absolutely can when you’re hurting. Get back upstairs before-”

“Before what? You leave again?”

Shiro flinches like he got hit and Lance looks, for a moment, remorseful. “I’m sorry-”

“Just get back upstairs.”

And he does.

* * *

Shiro finds himself in Lance’s room when he thinks Lance is asleep.

It’s not that he wants to be here- it’s like sleepwalking, almost, like his heart is being pulled by its strings to the only thing that matters in this world. He blinks and he’s standing over Lance in his too big bed, chest rising and falling, eyelashes fluttering. He does this every night and he wants to be ashamed because what a sick thing to do but-

Lance is beautiful.

He turns to leave one night when a hand snatches his wrist. He opens his mouth, readies his excuses, when he turns to see Lance so vulnerable, so open, it sets something off in his chest. He moves closer out of instinct to protect, to cherish.

“Please don’t leave,” Lance whispers.

So Shiro doesn’t. He stays the whole night, sitting next to Lance’s bed, talking like they’re lovers, like they’re something more than a failed marriage. Lance talks to Shiro like he’s not a broken man, like he’s whole, like he  _loves him-_

But as Lance falls back to sleep Shiro knows it was wishful thinking.

He doesn’t deserve it, anyway.

* * *

Lance gets better and Shiro doesn’t leave.

Lance comes up with excuses;  _the twins haven’t been together since last year, flight tickets are so expensive this month-_

_I need you._

So Shiro stays.

He tells his job it’s a family emergency, and he wonders if they would believe him if they knew he stood over his ex-husbands bed, tears in his eyes, self hatred burning burning every molecule in his body. Is it an emergency when you love someone so much it hurts you? Is it an emergency to see a star explode, to be dragged out to sea?

In his mind it is.

* * *

Leo and Leya have been strange lately.

They keep doing these  _things_ like making Shiro and Lance “dinner” (dinonuggets and bagel bites) and scampering off. They pick flowers from the neighbor’s garden and push them into Shiro’s hands, begging him to give it to their daddy. It’s normal for kids to want their parents to be back together, to want things to be the same-

Is it normal for Shiro to want that, too?

Is it normal for Lance?

Shiro gives him the flowers just to see a blush invade his face. Just to see that shy smile, that flutter of his eyelashes.

Shiro takes Lance out to dinner and buys his own flowers; they’re overly expensive and feel gawky and bulking in Shiro’s hand but Lance giggles and sighs over them anyway, says they’re the best present in the world-

Soon the house is covered in flowers and neither of them can seem to care.

* * *

 

Loving Lance is like breathing.

His chest expands and fills with Lance’s smile, he exhales sappy love letters he never sends, flowers that wilt, and over expensive dinners. His lungs are decorated with stardust and salt water and he can’t bring himself to care; he  _missed_ it.

So when Shiro looks at plane tickets to go back home and Lance holds his hand in his, looks at him with those big eyes, and whispers, “Please don’t leave”

Shiro stays.


End file.
